Free Speech TV asks "What is the American Dream?"

posted by Lana N. | 3pt
April 25, 2013

Free Speech TV will be giving you a live look at the Take Back the American Dream conference next week, and they've recorded a few short videos in advance of their coverage. Free Speech TV is a non-profit public interest media platform that broadcasts content on its own television channel on the DISH Network and simultaneously streams and archives video on the internet. We'll have more from Free Speech TV along with our own coverage right here next week.
My favorite of their clips has people on the street responding to the question, "How would you define the American Dream?" (Spoiler alert: At no point does anyone say they imagine having an expensive car and a giant house.)
Watch it:
I'm partial to the way my grandfather would put it to me while out on the front porch smoking a cigarette after dinner. Often in those post-supper musings, he would stress in some form or fashion that what he always wanted was to have a better life for his family that what he had when he was a child.
My grandfather grew up the son of poor Cajun farmers (Cajun French is actually his first language), joined the Marines, came back after his service, started a small business, and joined the growing middle class. His own children went to college and became professionals, as did his children's children. I'd say he succeeded in the goal of passing on a better life to his children, as many of his generation did.
As a young father myself, I now feel even stronger than I did back then at my grandfather's feet that I want to pass on a better life, a better world to my own daughter. And I want all Americans to have the same opportunity, regardless of whether they grow up poor on a farm or middle class in a suburban house.
If Free Speech TV asked me on the street, "What is the American Dream?" that would be my answer. What's yours?